


Slipstream

by ShadeShadow234



Category: Gintama
Genre: Gekijouban Gintama Kanketsu-hen: Yorozuya yo Eien Nare | Be Forever Yorozuya, Gen, character backstory, character death but not really, theyre all stubborn fucks ok, timetravel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-07-12 02:46:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15985970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadeShadow234/pseuds/ShadeShadow234
Summary: You are a god of time.Yet, you do not have the control you once did. Not anymore.





	Slipstream

**Author's Note:**

> Me: hey I should write the other two parts of the demon and the glasses  
> Me: **writes this instead**

You, are an immortal. Time is your domain, where others reign over fresh spilled blood, or the whispers of wind in the cold, or stardust flung to the heavens above, the clock ticks on by your will.

There is an oddity in the time-stream, you note. Instead of flowing over your fingers like fine woven silk, it hitches, clings tightly to your hand like damp cloth, then rather suddenly pulls itself backwards, as if someone had wrapped their hands in it and pulled. Blinking, you muse to yourself what might have caused this, and for nothing more than a fraction of a second, you mull on it for the worth of a thousand years.

Time is your domain, you decide. If some inconsequential mortal decides that they don’t like the outcome, they will simply have to live with it. After all, where others rein over fresh spilled blood, or the whispers of wind in the cold, or stardust flung to the heavens above, time is yours.

But you would be lying if you said your curiosity isnt peaked. Surely, just a glimpse would wreak no major damage. The universe is just as you know it, planets swinging happily onwards to their doom, ships sailing the void like its made of naught but water.

It takes you a moment to find the source of the disturbance, and you would smile if you knew how to.

The universes little problem child, the blue gem of earth.

The disturbance is a man named Sakata Gintoki. He seems dead set on killing his past self, which he would really know is a paradox by all standards. You seem to have stepped in at the fatalistic moment.

You know humanity well. Where others reign over fresh spilled blood, or the whispers of wind in the cold, or stardust flung to the heavens above, you reign supreme above all, living a million moments in a second, and before the wooden sword can move so much as a millimetre closer you know all there is to know about this man.

You know it all, yet it hardly makes sense. To go as far as to end ones own existence for someone else, the thought is unfathomable to you.

As you watch, the wooden sword, Lake Touya if you’re correct, (and of course you are,) bites through flesh and blood and bone, erupting out the other end in a spray of bloody matter, and one of the two silverhaired individuals on the field disappears. 

But then time hiccups, clings to you like damp cloth, and wrenches itself backwards, just to the moment before the sword connects. Odd, you think, that one man could do such a thing. Why relive your own death?

As you watch, the wooden sword, Lake Touya if you’re correct, (and of course you are,) bites through nothing but cloth.

The man known as Shiroyasha turns around and pulls off his wig.

...what?

Time is your domain, and yet these tiny blips dare to entangle it, stealing it from under your fingertips.

Unacceptable. You go back, back to before the blow is struck, because time is your domain, more than blood or whispers, or stardust high above, it is yours, a delicate tune strung by your fingertips and yet.

Yet.

You watch a thousand, a hundred, a million times more, and everytime he is stopped. Sometimes an imposter (white wig peeling away to reveal brown, black, silky, curly hair) a shove, (a girl, a woman, a child, Kagura) a desperate leap (Shinpachi, everytime), But Gintoki does not die.

You are the master of time. And yet you’ve lost to the stubborn will of these mortals.

So you go forwards.

Two children sit crying in front of a red building, and a rusted robot staggers towards them. Yes, you think, this is where the timeline should be. They will forget any moment now, and time will be yours.

But they don’t. They wipe their eyes of tears, wonder why they cried, and the robot provides them with memory, and the timestream skips and staggers away from you again.

So you go back. The boy and girl wipe their tears, the robot fades away to dust, and a police officer approaches from behind, cigarette leaving a trail of smoke tainting the air behind him. “What do you mean by Gintoki?” He asks, an almost insulting drawl to the word, and you feel the timestream begin to slip again. 

Again and again, you go back, try to divert them from their course, but you could sooner divert a river (ridiculous, time is your domain... isn’t it?). A shop sign, a street corner, a vending machine. Time and time again they remember, despite those memories not existing, not anymore, and it’s enough to make you want to tear your hair out. A ninja, a copy of shounen jump, a carton of strawberry milk.

Maybe, time is not your domain. Not in the way you believed, if it is so eagerly altered.

The gods of fresh spilled blood, of whispers in the wind, of stardust flung to the heavens above, and what are you?

You are... lost.

Time weaves it’s way around your fingers, draping itself loosely over your shoulders like a cloak, a protective barrier against you and this world.

A deep breath escapes your lips, and with little more than a thought, you move backwards through the timestream. Perhaps, living every moment out will somehow clarify things to you, an insane hope perhaps, but a real one all the same.

Time fits itself around you as you settle, and for the first time, slip out of your immortal skin. You do not want to be too close to Sakata Gintoki, he is a dangerous man, enough for time to disobey it’s god, so you will need to be a silent, distant observer, in a way you never could be with your godly memories. 

Time, despite your new mortal form, lingers around you, and you pick a name.

Elizabeth should do.

* * *

 

(When the time comes, even you find yourself disobeying your own laws. Sakata Gintoki is a very dangerous man indeed.)

**Author's Note:**

> What the fuck  
> I finished this at two am and forgot about it for two weeks  
> What have I done  
> I’m surprised how good this turned out for two am drivel haha


End file.
